Dogs may be man's best friend, but one dog in particular is Log Lane Village Marshal Fred Cook's best friend: Police Canine Opie.

But Opie is not Cook's first police dog, but his seventh.

"Opie's one of my best two dogs, though, and I think he's well on his way to being No. 1," Cook said. "Maybe it's just that we've gotten so close, since it's just him and I."

Cook got Opie when the dog was 2.5 years old. Opie had spent the previous year at Wiggins Police Department, which did not work out.

"I was a Morgan County Sheriff's deputy and was thinking about retiring my current police dog when I got the call" about Opie, Cook said.

The U.S. Police Canine Association provided the police canine to Wiggins and was looking for a new home for Opie. They first called Fort Morgan Police Department and the sheriff's office.

"Both said 'no, but you might want to talk Fred into it,'" Cook said. "Then I got a call. I told them I would need to think about it for a couple days. I decided to try it out, though."

Cook went to a Wiggins Board of Trustees meeting with Robert Evans, then a sergeant with the sheriff's office, and a foundation representative and they took custody of Opie, who was in rough shape. This was done under the board's protest, Cook recalled.

"He was in a 10x10 kennel with the floor covered in feces," Cook said. "It was obvious he had been mistreated."

He took Opie to a veterinarian, who told Cook, "I don't think he's going to live."

Cook fed Opie and nursed him back to health for about six weeks.

"At the end of six weeks, they figured he was going to live," Cook recalled. "I let him out of the kennel and played with him."

Opie was happy to be able to get out and play, Cook said.

"He doesn't know how to walk," Cook said. "He just runs."

Once Opie was ready, Cook put him back to work as a police dog.

Police Canine Opie rests after chasing down his red toy, which Log Lane Marshal Fred Cook threw for him at their home in Log Lane. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

Opie originally came from Petra, Russia, where Nunn Police Chief Joe Clingan was sent by the U.S. State Department in the 1990s to train dog trainers in drug detection.

"Most police canine handlers belong to an association, like the USPCA," Clingan said, explaining that there are 26 regions and northeast Colorado is in Region 14. "Every region has a quarterly award system. Fred and Opie won four quarterly awards for captures, tracks and finds."

Things like that led to Opie being featured in a magazine, "Canine Courier," recently for a big drug bust last fall.

"This dog was an exceptional dog," Clingan said. "At the start of his career, he was abused and neglected. Fred nursed him back to health. It took about a year, but Fred's a very caring, patient guy."

Cook has taken Opie everywhere with him, including to multiple hurricane relief efforts in New Jersey and New York.

"I don't go anywhere without him," Cook said. "He's been to all the hurricanes I've been to since I got him."

But it was not at a hurricane relief site that Opie's latest health setback happened.

"When we came back from Hurricane Sandy, we tackled that evidence locker" in Log Lane, where they came across lots of "black mold."

Cook said this aggravated Opie's allergies, which caused the dog to "itch something horrible."

But after treatment, Opie is doing better, Cook said.

"He's had some pretty good busts with Colorado State Patrol," the marshal said. "He's found good amounts of marijuana, meth and coke."

About two months ago, Opie found marijuana at Wiggins High School that led to a student's expulsion, Cook said.

"We've been through quite a bit together," Cook said. "I don't know if I'd have made it through without him. He's my best friend, by far."

The now 8.5-year-old police dog is getting close to retirement, though.

"We're retiring Opie in September," Cook said.

The plan is for Opie then to spend some of his days at Log Lane Town Hall with Town Clerk Kim Alva, Cook said.

"It's real hard on dogs when they've worked all their life, and you're standing there getting dressed, and they're not going along," Cook said. "Kim wants him down there in the daytime."

Opie is a town favorite, the marshal said.

"He's sure been good for this town, the public relations part it," Cook said. "All the kids want to pet him and play with him."

And it's not just in Log Lane that Opie gets attention.

"Wherever I do, like I went to eat at Arby's, and some kids from Minnesota were eating. They wanted to see him," Cook said. "We go to schools, and he wants to play with the kids at schools. He's just a friendly kind of guy."